Short video update on the progress of my listing at 9043 Olde Davenport Road:

Dubuque Real Estate Market Analysis – March 25th, 2009

This week’s Dubuque Real Estate market shows a gain in available inventory, though we didn’t categorically gain in the overall listed number of homes – we did have a sizeable jump in the number of listings available (up fourteen) as our pending sales numbers have dropped by a nearly equal amount (down sixteen). 

The National Association of Realtors stresses the pending sales total as a measure of how the current market is doing.  I personally would have expected the local pending sales total to higher at this point in the year. Perhaps our lingering winter and early spring weather is dampening further sales.  A further analysis shows that the price range having the most difficulty is those homes listed OVER $200,000.  While homes priced over $200K account for 42% of all available listings, that same price range accounts for only 17% of pending home sales.

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Current Market Listings Status & Supply Figures

Current Total Listings: 418 ( - 2 )

Active/Available Listings: 350 ( + 14 )

 Pending Sold Listings: 68 ( - 16 )  or 16.3 % of Current Market  ( - 3.7% )

Dubuque Area Sales Previous 12 Months: 737  ( + 13 ) or 61.4 Homes Sold per month ( + 1.1 )

Supply of Homes: 5.7 Month Supply ( + 0.1 ) 

Percentage Selling Per Month: 17.5% ( - 0.5% ) 

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Rolling Twelve Months Total Sales & Averages

This Year: 737 Sales ($146,847 avg. – avg. down 2.9% from previous yr.)

One Year Ago: 880 Sales ($151,279 avg. - avg. up 3.4% from previous yr.)

 Two Years Ago: 1003 Sales ($146,362 avg. – avg. up 4.5% from previous yr.)

Three Years Ago: 959 Sales ($140,126 avg. – avg. up 7.6% from previous yr.)

Four Years Ago: 914 Sales ($130,176 avg. sale price) 

As with all RiverBankstoCornFields.com posts, your comments and questions are encouraged and welcomed below…

Dubuque Real Estate Market Analysis – March 8th, 2009

Current Total Listings: 410 ( no change )

Active/Available Listings: 325 ( + 2 )

 Pending Sold Listings: 85 ( - 2 )  or 20.7 % of Current Market  ( - 0.5% )

Dubuque Area Sales Previous 12 Months: 725  ( - 2 ) or 60.4 Homes Sold per month ( - 0.2 )

Supply of Homes: 5.4 Month Supply ( + 0.1 ) 

Percentage Selling Per Month: 18.8% ( - 0.1% ) 

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This Year: 725 Sales ($146,310 avg. – avg. down 2.9% from previous yr.)

One Year Ago: 892 Sales ($150,627 avg. - avg. up 2.8% from previous yr.)

 Two Years Ago: 1016 Sales ($146,585 avg. – avg. up 5.3% from previous yr.)

Three Years Ago: 963 Sales ($139,219 avg. – avg. up 7.4% from previous yr.)

Four Years Ago: 897 Sales ($129,615 avg. sale price)

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The IBM in Dubuque project is great, but we received a reminder today that Dubuque is not completely immune to the harsh economic realities of the world. In an announcement today, Deere & Company announced layoffs within the construction and forestry divisions that will have a major, and hopefully temporary, impact on the Dubuque area.  Per a breaking article in the Des Moines Register this afternoon:

The layoffs are effective March 30 and are broken down at 220 in Dubuque and 105 in Davenport. Workers were told of the layoffs at meetings Friday afternoon.

The latest layoff comes after 200 workers were laid off at the Deere Davenport facility and another 180 in Dubuque since the beginning of the year. Deere is Iowa’s largest manufacturing employer, with about 12,000 workers.

On the heels of the newly released figures this morning of a national unemployment rate of 8.1%, the Deere announcement pushes the point home that we’re all interconnected in the national & global marketplace.  Having now lost 400 employees at John Deere Dubuque Works, this certainly puts a blunt on the euphoria we’ve been feeling since the IBM announcement on January 15, 2009.

How will this impact the local real estate scene?  I’m no fortune teller, but a basic understanding of economics will tell you this will be a drain not only real estate, but nearly all local businesses to a degree.  We’re talking restaurants, service providers, car dealers - the list go on and on.  IBM and the upcoming Hormel Processing plant will most likely still allow for growth in nearly all sectors of the Dubuque economy, but the Deere troubles will slow that growth a bit.

The bigger question is how will we, as a community, react?  I doubt we’ll ever revert to the doom and gloom we experienced in the late 70’s and early 80’s in the Dubuque area.  The old phrase “last one to leave Dubuque, turn out the lights” should by no means enter the picture.  Remember, we hit nearly 24% unemployment in 1982.  Back then Dubuque seemed to revolve only around the fortunes of  John Deere and The  Dubuque Packing Company.

Our local economy is way more diverse today.  With Dubuque becoming a hub for technology, banking, and obviously tourism, I am fully confident that, while this is going to hurt a lot of good folks, especially in the short term, we’ll have other good opportunities.   Deere & Company hopefully will be able to bring their workforce back up to full speed once the larger economy starts to recover.

OFHEO.gov (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight) is an invaluable resource to anybody and everybody involved in real estate.  Not only should agents, appraisers, and mortgage lenders be familiar with OFHEO and its mission, but homeowners and those hoping to someday be homeowners should be in the know about the great data OFHEO.gov provides.

According to the OFHEO.gov website, OFHEO’s mission is:

…to promote housing and a strong national housing finance system by ensuring the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association)  and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation).  OFHEO works to ensure the capital adequacy and financial safety and soundness of two housing government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the nation’s largest housing finance institutions.

One of the ancillary services OFHEO provides is monthly, quarterly, and annual tracking of appreciation rates, known formally as the House Price Index, with appreciation (or depreciation) rates broken down by national, state, major metropolitan areas.  I personally make a point to visit OFHEO.gov at least once a quarter to download the latest report.  The most recent report available to the public is the Quarter 4, 2008 report, released last week on February 24th, 2009.  In it I found, as usual, some interesting facts about housing price trends.

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• Nationwide, house prices fell by 3.4% in the 4th quarter and fell by 8.2% for the previous full year
• This is the 6th straight quarter (18 months) of nationwide price declines, coinciding with the actual start of the recession in the fall of 2007, see chart below.
• Iowa ranks 8th best among the states with a slight decline of .64% for the 4th quarter and decline of .95% for the year.
• Illinois ranks as the 32nd “best” state with a quarterly decline of 3.03% and an annual decline of 5.75%
• The three worst states, no surprise, were Florida, California, and Nevada with respective annual declines of 23.86%, 25.52%, and 28.24%.  Sorry, Mr. DiCaprio, your $8.9 million-dollar mansion is now only worth a paltry $6.6 Million
• 44 of the 50 states saw annual declines for the previous year, see chart above.

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Sounds and looks pretty grim, right? Well, in good old Dubuque Iowa we haven’t been doing all too bad.  In fact, we actually saw in increase in prices for both the 4th Quarter (up .04%)  and the annual figure (up .57%).  Granted, these aren’t exactly big gains by any means, but at least we’re holding mostly steady against the national trends.  You’re not getting mea-rich owning real estate, at least not right now.  If, for example, you bought a home for $150,000 on December 31st, 2007, that same home “should” have been worth about $150,900 at the end of 2008.

At least we’re not Merced, CA, - they had a one-year decline of 49.5% – truly amazing.

 You can access the full OFHEO.gov report here. 

As always, I encourage your questions or comments via the comments function available in every post.

An awesome analysis of how Dubuque landed the IBM project from Tom Daykin of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel today that discusses not only the intimate details of how the IBM-Dubuque-Iowa partnership came about, but talks about Dubuque in general, it’s economic history, and the great transformation we’ve made from a strictly industrial-manufacturing community into a hub for banking, technology, and tourism.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Article Here

I especially love the tone of the article in which the author uses the Dubuque example as a waypoint for Milwaukee’s leadership to guide them, hoping to assimilate the success the Dubuque area has been taking part in, not only the IBM project, but also Hormel’s new production facility, the newly-opened Diamond Jo Casino, and the (renovated and now re-named) Mystique of Dubuque.

It’s been a little more than month since the IBM in Dubuque announcement was made, so I thought I’d do a quick-link round-up of a tiny portion of the continuing coverage of the project.  Even yours truly has been mentioned for my personal coverage, especially the multiple posts I made to River Banks to Corn Fields on the day the project was announced.

THOnline article with the sidebar mention of RBtoCF.com here.

The incentive package that helped being IBM to Dubuque has certainly had it’s share of scrutiny, including within the article I linked above.  Here are some other reactions as well as a loose timeline of the process to cement the arrival of IBM to Dubuque.

Des Moines Register IBM Incentive Details – January 16th, 2009

THOnline.com IBM Incentives Approved – February 20th, 2009 (including some key numbers in sidebar)

THOnline Roshek Building Renovations on Fast Track – February 24, 2009

Rockford, Illinois views the Dubuque – IBM model as path to similar success February 14, 2009

IBM, as well as Dubuque and other Iowa representatives are fanning out to all the area colleges, large and small, holding  job fairs.  Computer World reported the mass number of applications pouring in as well:

DMRegister.com  IBM Center Provides Welcome Jobs – February 20th, 2009

Computer World Reports that Applications are Pouring In

EmploymentCrossing.com even has a video short on YouTube about the IBM Service Center here:

Then, finally, there’s this gem from our good friends in Wisconsin (Go Hawks!). Neil Heinen, in an editorial for WISC Channel 3000 states “We’re talking Madison vs. Dubuque! We’ve been competing with Raleigh-Durham, Boston, Denver and Silicon Valley? Or so we thought. IBM could have located here and chose Dubuque? That’s just not right.”

Well, at least you have Capitol Brewery, Mr. Heinen.

Today at approximately 1:30PM CST on Tuesday, the President signed the latest economic stimulus bill into law.  Now, we can all argue into the wee hours about whether this latest attempt to kick-start the economy is a good idea, but, at the end of the day, it’s  still the law. 

In addition to being limited to first-time home buyers, the tax credit:

• Is equal to 10% of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $8,000.
• Is available for homes purchased on or after Jan. 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009.
• Does not have to be repaid.
• Has income limits of $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married couples.

I happen to be a member of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and they have been doing a great job keeping the public updated as to the housing provisions in the stimulus bill.  Click the image below to view NAHB Tax Credit website.

It’s been a couple of weeks since the last time I posted an update about the recent trends in Iowa mortgage rates.  This week I posted both the 30-year and 15-year fixed rate mortgages.  Notice that while the 15-year and 30 year rates seem to follow each other up and down the rate scale, they aren’t necessarily tied together.  See the size-able dip 15-year notes took towards the end of January while 30-year rates continued a slow, steady climb in that same time frame.

Graph courtesy of BankRate.com

Of course, these are averages for 30-year and 15-year fixed rate mortgages.  Local rates can, and do, vary on not only a daily, but frequently an hourly basis.  Check with your favorite local banks or credit unions to get local rate quotes. 

If you haven’t already been working with a bank or credit union or even a mortgage broker, I do have access to in in-house mortgage lender at Ruhl & Ruhl with 1862 Mortgage.  1862’s local rep, Ashley Schrempf would be more than happy to quote you current rates as well as pre-qualify you if you may be in the market for a home loan in the near futute.

The Iowa Workforce Development office in Dubuque is sponsoring athe Dubuque Apprenticeship Job Fair on Wednesday, February 18th at at 680 Main St. 2nd floor, from 10-2 p.m (Veterans only from 10-Noon).  Refreshments will be served.

Representatives from the following building trades will attend: area Armed Forces recruiters, carpenters cement masons, electricians, HVAC, insulators, millwrights, pipe fitters, plumbers and sheet metal. Additional trades may be added to the list until the day of the event.

Complete Details Here (IWD Press Release)